No-excuse absentee voting killed in House and Senate

RICHMOND – Democratic hopes of no-excuse absentee voting were dashed Tuesday as committees in the House of Delegates and the Senate killed the measures on party-line votes.

In order to cast an absentee ballot in Virginia, voters must have one of 11 reasons.

Democrats and one Republican – Del. Ron Villanueva of Virginia Beach – argued that no-excuse absentee voting would help cut down on long lines at the polls on Election Day and offer greater access to the ballot box.

"I have two of the most higher voter turnout precincts in Virginia Beach and one in Chesapeake," Villanueva told the House Privileges and Elections Subcommittee on Elections. "Average wait times were over four hours. We feel this bill will would make the process more efficient and allow greater voter turnout."

But Williamsburg voter registrar Win Sowder said allowing for no-excuse absentee voting would overburden her office, which she said is small and offers no public parking.

"It's not that we don't want to do it," Sowder said. "But I don't know where we'd get the money to staff our office."

Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, who sits on the subcommittee, said it was "depressing" that registrars offices like Williamsburg's would argue that greater voter access would cost too much.

"This is a system that is creaky and old fashioned," Sickles said. "We need to pass this bill."

The Senate Privileges and Elections Committee killed a measure put forward by Sen. Janet Howell that wouled allow people to vote absentee in person without an excuse, but kept the absentee qualifications in place for voters who mail in absentee ballots.

"The Republican efforts to keep voting down continue," Howell said.

Both the House and the Senate panels approved measures to add being age 65 or older to the list of acceptable reasons to vote absentee.

Sen. John Miller, D-Newport News, has offered the legislation in the past and said senior citizens should not have to wait in long lines to cast a ballot. Miller's bill passed the Senate committee on 10-4 vote. Similar measures have passed the full Senate in the past.

Adding voters 65 and older to the list has not made it out of committee in recent years, but subcommittee chairman John Cosgrove, who has opposed the measure in the past, said he has had "a change of heart."

Bills to restore the voting rights of felons convicted of nonviolent offenses were kept alive in a Senate subcommittee as Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Secretary of the Commonwealth Janet Kelly testified in their favor, and will now be heard by the full Senate Privileges and Elections Committee.

The legislation did not get the full endorsement of the subcommittee, which voted 3-3 on the measure, even after Cuccinelli worked with senators to amend the legislation to address the concerns of some Republicans on the panel.

"The right we have to vote is such a sacred right that I think you have to earn it back," said Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, who voted to keep the current process.

Gov. Bob McDonnell publicly supported restoration of rights legislation in his State of the Commonwealth Address last week, but similar testimony by Cuccinelli and Kelly was ignored Monday by a House subcommittee that quashed the measures.